"What?!"
Golden Crocodile Douluo shouted, trying to stop him, but it was already too late.
The pitch-black poison needle, coated in deadly venom, had already crossed thirty paces and shot straight toward Su Chen's throat!
The Spirit Masters in the hall were all stunned.
No one had expected that after Sea God Island had been crushed yesterday, someone would dare attempt an assassination in Listening Rain Pavilion in broad daylight today!
What was more, the aura emanating from the needle made even Titled Douluo feel a chill in their hearts.
Yu Xiaogang and Flender in the back row stared fixedly at the needle.
It hit!
At such close range, as long as the formation didn't activate on its own, Su Chen, who had no Soul Power, absolutely couldn't dodge!
In the corner, Gu Yuena's violet eyes narrowed slightly.
Di Tian was just about to release his Soul Power to block the Hidden Weapon.
"Don't move."
Gu Yuena spoke two words, her voice utterly calm.
"Keep watching."
Just as everyone thought Su Chen was about to be drenched in blood by the strike—
On the dais, Su Chen didn't even try to dodge.
He didn't even summon the Unique Cave Heaven behind his head.
He merely raised his right hand, as casually as could be.
With his index and middle fingers, he lightly pinched the air in front of his throat.
Clink.
A crisp metallic sound rang out. The pitch-black poison needle, so fast that even a Titled Douluo couldn't see its trajectory, and coated in peerless poison—
Was held firmly between Su Chen's two fingers.
The needle tip was less than half an inch from Su Chen's throat.
But it couldn't advance a fraction farther!
The entire hall fell silent.
Everyone's eyes widened as they stared at the unbelievable scene on the dais.
Two fingers?
He'd caught a surprise Hidden Weapon that even a Titled Douluo couldn't react to?
And there hadn't been the slightest fluctuation from a formation. This was purely the speed and strength of his body!
How was that possible?!
In the crowd, Tang San's face beneath his bamboo hat turned deathly pale.
His body trembled violently, his eyes filled with terror!
His most treasured Hidden Weapons, the trump card that could let him kill opponents above his level—
Had been stopped by two fingers in front of that young man in white, like some kind of joke???
On the dais, Su Chen casually tossed the pitch-black poison needle onto the table.
He didn't even spare it a glance.
Then Su Chen's gaze passed through the hall and settled on Tang San, sitting in the corner with a bamboo hat on.
"You tried to ambush me with this kind of despicable scrap metal."
Su Chen picked up the Gavel again and toyed with it in his hand.
"Tang San."
"Did you take me for one of those useless fools outside whom you've ambushed?"
"Tang San."
As soon as those two words were spoken, everyone in the hall followed Su Chen's gaze.
In the corner, Tang San stiffened beneath his bamboo hat.
Seeing that the ambush had failed and his identity was exposed, Flender reacted swiftly.
He grabbed Tang San and Yu Xiaogang by the shoulders. His owl wings spread wide behind him as he unleashed all his Soul Power, intending to smash through the roof and escape.
"Trying to leave?"
Su Chen remained seated in his grand chair, with no intention of getting up.
He simply raised his right hand and pressed down, as casually as could be.
Boom!
A terrifying force of golden Bloodline Power crashed down from above like a mountain.
Flender had barely lifted off the ground by half a meter when he, Tang San, and Yu Xiaogang were all slammed hard into the floor.
The sturdy blue-stone tiles instantly split with several deep cracks.
The bamboo hat rolled off Tang San's head, revealing a face twisted with terror.
"Su Chen! You humiliated my father and destroyed my sect!"
"Killing you is an act of justice!"
Tang San lay facedown on the floor. Seeing that he couldn't escape, he gritted his teeth and shouted.
He tried to claim the moral high ground and stir up the other Spirit Masters in the hall.
At the front, Dai Tianfeng let out a cold laugh.
"An act of justice?"
"You use despicable Hidden Weapons coated in peerless poison to attack someone from behind, and you call that justice?"
Bibi Dong also looked down at Tang San with disdain.
This boy's methods were even more vicious and underhanded than those of their Spirit Hall, and he still dared to spout such nonsense here.
On the dais, Su Chen picked up the pitch-black poison needle and tossed it in front of Tang San.
Clink.
The needle landed on the stone floor. Its ferociously potent poison immediately ate through the tiles, leaving a black hole and sending up wisps of foul-smelling white smoke.
Seeing how toxic it was, many of the Spirit Masters in the hall hurriedly backed away, afraid of getting even a trace on themselves.
If that needle had struck an ordinary person just now, they would have turned to blood in an instant.
"An act of justice?"
Su Chen looked at Tang San on the ground, his tone even.
"Your father, Tang Hao, was inferior in skill and was auctioned off by me in public. He brought that on himself."
"Instead of cultivating openly and honestly to take revenge on me, you hid in a dark corner and shot a sneak attack."
"Is that what you call the rules of the Tang Sect?"
With Su Chen exposing his true intentions in front of everyone, Tang San's face turned pale, then flushed red. He gritted his teeth, unable to answer.
Yu Xiaogang beside him panicked too.
Lying on the ground, he struggled to lift his head and shouted:
"Mr. Su! Xiao San was just desperate to save his father. He lost his head for a moment!"
"You're a reclusive master who commands the inheritance of the Great Dao. Why hold a grudge against a child?"
Yu Xiaogang was clearly trying to use Su Chen's status as an elder master to guilt-trip him.
The people in the hall looked toward the dais as well.
They wanted to see whether this Mr. Su, whose methods seemed to reach the heavens, would spare the boy out of consideration for his dignity.
Su Chen only laughed.
He looked at Yu Xiaogang as if he were watching a buffoon.
"Lost his head for a moment?"
"A child?"
Su Chen slowly rose from his grand chair.
"I'm a storyteller, not a Living Bodhisattva who saves all living beings."
"Since you tried to kill me, you should have been prepared to be killed."
With that, Su Chen didn't waste another word.
He simply raised his foot and lightly stamped in Tang San's direction from a distance.
Crack!
A sharp sound of breaking bones rang through the hall.
"Ah!!!"
Tang San let out a piercing scream and rolled across the floor in agony.
The right arm he'd used to fire the Hidden Weapon was now twisted beyond recognition.
Su Chen's distant kick had crushed the bones inside to powder.
His meridians were shattered. His arm was completely crippled.
Worse still, the force of that kick had surged into Tang San's dantian.
It had scattered more than half of the Mysterious Heaven Skill inner force he'd painstakingly cultivated.
"Xiao San!"
Yu Xiaogang and Flender stared with bloodshot eyes, trying to rush over and examine him, but the golden Bloodline Power pressed them down so hard they couldn't move at all.
The Spirit Masters in the hall felt their hearts quiver.
What ruthless methods!
Without the slightest hesitation, without any scruples—he'd crippled him just like that!
In the corner, Gu Yuena watched Su Chen on the dais, a glint of interest flashing in her violet eyes.
Decisive and ruthless, without the hypocrisy and mercy so common among humans.
That was the bearing a true ruler should have.
If Su Chen had spared Tang San just because of those few pleas, she would have thought less of Mr. Su.
Su Chen sat back in his chair.
He looked at Tang San, who was writhing in pain, his whole body twitching and his forehead slick with cold sweat.
"I'm sparing your life not because I'm softhearted."
"I want you to see with your own eyes how ridiculous and pathetic the Hidden Weapons you're so proud of, and those so-called Tang Sect Ultimate Arts, are—"
"In the face of the perfect world I'm telling."
With that, Su Chen waved dismissively, his expression full of distaste.
"Throw them out. Don't dirty the floor of Listening Rain Pavilion."
The two Green-Clad Attendants outside immediately came in.
They dragged and hauled Tang San, Yu Xiaogang, and Flender away, then tossed the three of them onto the street like garbage.
With that interruption dealt with, the hall fell quiet once more.
Everyone sat obediently in their seats, barely even daring to breathe.
They were afraid of angering this murderous god, whose temper didn't seem particularly pleasant.
Su Chen lifted his teacup and took another sip.
Then he picked up the Gavel.
Smack!
"We were just at the point where Shi Hao shattered the phantom and stepped into the Upper Realm."
Su Chen's tone instantly returned to its earlier calm, as if crippling Tang San really had been no more than swatting a fly.
"But after crossing the boundary wall, he didn't land somewhere safe."
"That ancient road had been a killing trap laid by the Upper Realm's mighty figures from the start."
"He fell into a forbidden zone called the Blood-Colored Plain."
Su Chen swept his folding fan, and the scene in midair shifted once more.
A barren plain of dark-red earth appeared before the crowd.
"Blood-colored mist drifts here year-round, and the place is full of all kinds of bloodthirsty ancient beasts."
"Shi Hao had only just landed. He hadn't even had time to adjust to the Upper Realm's incredibly oppressive laws of heaven and earth."
"A silver centipede as huge as a mountain then burst out of the ground and pounced straight at him."
Su Chen's voice gradually lowered.
"It was a venomous beast that had ignited divine flames."
"Its armor was as hard as iron, and the poison it spat could eat holes through the void."
"Faced with the surprise attack of a divine-level Ferocious Beast—"
Su Chen glanced toward the door, a hint of mockery in his voice.
"Shi Hao didn't use some poisoned scrap of iron to launch a sneak attack."
"He clenched both fists and charged straight at the divine centipede."
"He would use the strength of his physical body alone to fight the first battle of his Desolate Heaven Emperor legend across the Three Thousand Provinces of the Upper Realm!"
The listeners' hearts began to race again.
A divine-level Ferocious Beast right after ascending?
Wasn't the Upper Realm's environment far too brutal?
In the corner, Di Tian and Gu Yuena stared fixedly at the runes faintly emerging on Shi Hao's body in the scene.
They wanted to see just how terrifying the Bone Script system, which surpassed the rules of Douluo, would be in actual combat.
Facing the centipede's overwhelming barrage of venom, Shi Hao didn't retreat.
He drove his right leg into the ground and shot into the sky like a cannonball.
The sheer strength of his body stamped a crater more than ten meters across into the ground beneath him.
The poison landed on his body, yet it couldn't even corrode his skin and flesh in the slightest. The layer of golden light kept it entirely at bay.
In the corner, Gu Yuena stared intently at Shi Hao's movements in the image.
Through the sky-screen, she could see with extraordinary clarity that tiny golden runes were flickering deep within Shi Hao's bones.
Those runes seemed almost alive, pulsing in time with Shi Hao's breathing.
"Do you see?"
Gu Yuena lowered her voice and spoke in a tone only Di Tian could hear.
"Not a trace of the power within him comes from borrowing from heaven and earth."
"Those runes are carved into his bones and blood. He himself is the source of his power."
Di Tian nodded, his golden eyes burning with fervor.
On Douluo Continent, Spirit Masters had to hunt Soul Beasts to obtain Soul Rings, while Soul Beasts had to slowly accumulate power by absorbing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.
If the Divine Realm severed the laws, or a heavenly tribulation suppressed them, the life and death of every living being could only be left to the will of Heaven.
But the Bone Script system Shi Hao had displayed—
It was a true state of self-sufficiency.
It needed neither the Divine Realm's gifts nor Heaven's charity.
Even if Shi Hao were tossed into a barren wasteland without spiritual energy, he could still unleash terrifying battle prowess with his physical body.
On the raised platform,
Su Chen lightly tapped with the folding fan in his hand.
Bang!
In the image, Shi Hao's fist slammed into the Silver Centipede's indestructible shell.
With a teeth-grating crunch,
the Silver Centipede's shell, which was strong enough to withstand a god's strike, was blasted open by Shi Hao's fist, leaving a huge hole.
The centipede let out a pained shriek. Its enormous body thrashed violently across the plain, kicking up clouds of dust.
Shi Hao showed no mercy, pressing his advantage.
He leapt straight onto the centipede's back and gripped both sides of the wound with all his might.
His arms flexed with sudden force.
With a muffled sound of flesh tearing,
the poisonous insect from the Upper Realm, which had ignited divine fire, was ripped in two by Shi Hao's bare hands!
Blood, like liquid silver, rained down from the sky, staining Shi Hao red from head to toe.
At the sight of this, the Spirit Masters in the hall gaped in shock.
Dai Tianfeng clenched his fists, feeling the blood in his body surge faster.
Now this was true violent beauty.
No flashy Soul Skills clashing, no Martial Soul Avatar—
Just the purest crushing force, tearing a god apart with his bare hands!
"Wonderful!"
A general of the Star Luo Empire couldn't help shouting.
Xue Ye swallowed. He looked at the black hole the poison needle had corroded in the ground, then at Shi Hao in the image, tearing a Ferocious Beast apart with his bare hands.
By comparison, Tang San's tricks of using poison to launch sneak attacks suddenly seemed like those of a rat skulking in the dark.
On the raised platform, Su Chen picked up the teacup on the table.
"After killing a Divine Fire Realm poisonous insect, Shi Hao showed not the slightest hint of relief."
Su Chen took a sip of tea and continued his narration.
"The danger of the Blood-Colored Plain doesn't come only from these bloodthirsty Ferocious Beasts."
"The greater danger comes from the native cultivators of the Upper Realm."
Su Chen swept his folding fan, and the viewpoint in the image suddenly pulled higher.
At this, the many people from Douluo inside the Listening Rain Pavilion all turned to look.
Neither Soul Beasts nor Spirit Masters dared even to breathe too loudly at that moment.
Before you continue